For beekeepers, their hobby is the sweetest

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Sitting on Andy Westrich's back patio, you easily hear the hum of honeybees busy at work.

Several hives located in a corner of his Hampton, Va., yard contain thousands of bees. They fly out, they fly in, collecting pollen from the sweet-smelling flowers on hollies in Andy's yard.

Today, Andy, 44, relaxes and watches the bees while he tells a visitor about their communal habits. When he's not at home or working as a Navy analyst in Norfolk, Va., he checks on other honeybee hives he keeps at area gardens. About once a week, he's on a bee-removal job, tearing out drywall so he can remove thousands of bees that decided to nest inside the comfort of someone's home.

When honeybees decide to swarm and create a new colony, they send out scout bees to search for a new place to live. They look for a small enclosed place with about eight to 12 gallons of space — about the size of a piece of carry-on luggage, says Andy. Unfortunately, sometimes that area is inside a house with an opening they can access.

"I've noticed the houses here do not have very good caulking and have many ways for honeybees to get into a house or outbuilding," Andy says. "When I remove a hive from a house, I close up the area or advise the homeowner to seal cracks and insulate spaces."

No matter where honeybees decide to nest, they are for the most part quiet, courteous neighbors.

"Honeybees for the most part are very gentle insects," Andy says. "I have several colonies in people's yards and they have no problems at all with them.

"I mow the grass in front of my hives with no veil or safety equipment. Most times, the bees go around me and pay me no notice. It can take quite a bit to get a colony of honeybees upset, and they calm down very quickly.

"If you are nervous, bees can sense that nervousness."

A beekeeper for four years, Andy is a member of the Virginia State Beekeepers Association and two local groups — Colonial Beekeepers Association and the Tidewater Beekeepers Association. He started by helping a friend with his bees, then moved on to hives of his own.

"For the everyday person or gardener to help out honeybees, they should plant flowering plants and use less pesticides — it does the honeybees no good to have poisonous flowers out there," he says.

Hampton Roads, like most everywhere, has seen a decline in the honeybee population overall, but luckily there's an increase in beekeepers so the decrease is slowing and may begin to rise, he says.